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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23967133">quaking underneath the force of you</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account'>orphan_account</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Guardians of the Galaxy (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Child Abuse, Child Neglect, Coming of Age, Developing Relationship, Drug Abuse, Ego's A+ Parenting, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Empathy, F/F, Lesbians in Space, Mantis-Centric, POV Mantis (Marvel), Sexual Assault, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, bugborg, mantis and nebula knew each other before vol 2, mantis is a twine ball of emotions</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-05-02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-07-17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-02 16:47:07</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Rape/Non-Con</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>14,408</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23967133</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>"There’s a bounty out for her rearrest. 20,000 units.<br/>'Sitting with the big kids now', Nebula says as they’re lounging about in her ship one day. She’s missing three new fingers on her good hand, and there’s a panel of machinery sticking out from the left side of her head. She’s colder now. But it’s the same cold she’s always had, and it’s a cold Mantis has always found comfort in.<br/>Her frozen soul could breathe fire into her yet again, if Mantis would will it.<br/>'I’m twenty-three years old', she whispers, arms wrapped comfortably around Nebula’s waist. 'I’ve been a ‘big kid’ for years now.'<br/>Nebula presses closer to her, content as she rests against Mantis’s chest, and smiles. She’s not listening. She’s...happy.<br/>Mantis closes her eyes, trying to lose herself in the rare rays of sunshine emitting from behind the cloudied skies of her friend."<br/>. . .<br/>Mantis, throughout years.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Ego the Living Planet &amp; Mantis, Mantis/Nebula (Marvel)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>8</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>40</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>The rape/non-con doesn't happen until later on, and it involves a stranger. I'll make a note just before that chapter.<br/>Okay. So I love Mantis. She is so sweet but also really fucking cool, and I cannot wait to see her her again. That being said, I hate how vol 2 (maybe IW and Endgame, too, but I haven't seen them in a minute) made her into a punching bag of a joke. Like the humor for her just feels really heavy-handed and legit makes it hard to enjoy her scenes because it's just needlessly and repeatedly cruel. It makes it hard to really take in her character because every five seconds, she's being called ugly, a pet, a flea, or having a fucking meteor launched at her. Maybe vol 2 set it up that way in order for vol 3 to dissect that, idk, but in the meantime, a bitch is bitter.<br/>SO, a bitch is putting that bitterness to good use. This'll largely be a Bugborg fic, but the main focus is Mantis and the effect being raised by Ego has on her. This is another fic I wrote back in the fall that I wasn't sure of posting, and I'm happy to finally be posting. I'll be updating every Friday, and I can't wait to see what y'all think.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>They don't get visitors often.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ego usually "handles" them, long before they even breach the planet's atmosphere. Prior to a few months ago, Mantis hadn’t known what exactly the “handling” entailed. She always imagined it wasn’t very nice, until the day she watched him greet a visitor that had crash-landed just a few miles out from the palace. As it turns out, the “handling” involves touching the visitor’s forehead and disintegrating them. Mantis hadn’t stuck around to watch, but the visitor’s cries had echoed for at least an hour after her departure.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>So yeah. They don’t get visitors often.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But this visitor, this Thanos gentleman, is not like other visitors.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"I've been watching him. I’ve seen his type before", Ego informs her, gently sliding his blade against his foam-coated face. He shoves the blade underneath the stream of the faucet, then repeats the motion, creating two thin rows to reveal another sheath of white underneath. Mantis looks up from where she’s sat on the floor to meet his eyes.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Eye contact is good</span>
  </em>
  <span>, she recites. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Eye contact means you mean business, kiddo.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>"They either wanna rule the world", Ego continues, unperturbed. "Or to destroy it."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mantis nods. She unfolds her legs from beneath her and stands, out of arm’s reach, like he taught her. "And you are meeting him to stop him", she says, hopefully. She's seen so much of him hurting people these past few months. For once, she'd just like to see him be nice to someone.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"God, of course not.” Ego keeps his gaze on the mirror before him, shuddering as if the mere thought of doing so repulses him. "Mere mortal squabbles?" He chuckles and shakes his head, leaning closer to the mirror to pluck at a pesky whisker. He whistles, points his finger in the general area, and zaps the strand of hair away. He turns to Manris, accepting the towel she passes him, and presses it to his face. "Not really my thing."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mantis trails behind him as he exits the bathroom, struggling to keep up with his fast pace. She isn't surprised, necessarily, by his apathy. Disappointed but she's growing to expect it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"No." A coat materializes upon him, as well as a crisp pair of shoes and a pair of sunglasses."Im looking to talk him down to 50%, sparing me, of course, to govern the remains of the galaxy." He beams down at her and winks. "Good idea, right?"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mantis smiles and nods, even though she thinks it's a very strange idea. She doesn't know what she’d do if she were him, but she does know Ego is very powerful and that he could hold his own against Thanos if need be. It doesn't make sense that he'd agree to 50%, whatever that means, but, then again, there’s a lot of stuff about Ego that doesn’t make sense.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"That is a very good idea", Mantis says eventually, and Ego looks down at her, surprised, as if he'd forgotten she was there. He smiles, chuckles, and pats her head, then grabs her by her hand and creates a stepping stone path of clouds to reach Thanos’s ship. If this were a meeting between literally any other two people in the galaxy, she’d probably find it all exciting.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The ship, the </span>
  <em>
    <span>Sanctuary II</span>
  </em>
  <span>, is bigger than just about anything she's ever seen, even Ego’s palace. It makes her want to cower behind Ego, but he just pushes her away and shakes his head at her, so she doesn’t do that.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Still. It doesn't look like a very nice place.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>They walk for a while, through hallway after hallway. Mantis gets tired and goes to ask Ego if they can take a break, but it's then that a man approaches them. This man is different from Ego, whose insides are like raging storms lurking behind sunny skies. This man’s insides are like ugly storm clouds, the kind that linger for days and yet never deliver any rain or thunder. It makes Mantis shiver. It’s overwhelming, as it always is to be around someone whose emotive field she’s accustomed to. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I am Ebony Maw", the man says, sparing Mantis half a glance before turning his attention to Ego. "I wasn't informed that you were bringing a child."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Well, Mantis here is more of a pet than a person", Ego says with a chuckle, and Mantis winces, just barely suppressing the brew of hurt and embarrassment bubbling within her. "Besides, I hear Thanos has some pets of his own." He looks the Maw up and down and grins deviously. "They’re supposed to be very exquisite."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The Maw just watches him, and Mantis grits her teeth, averting her gaze to the floor. After a long quiet minute, one which does little to cloud Ego’s inner sunny skies, the Maw turns around, calling out over his shoulder, “My master is awaiting our arrival”.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Tough crowd”, Ego mutters. He starts to follow him, pausing when he sees Mantis has yet to move. "Tadpole", Ego says sternly, clapping his hands together. "What's the holdup? This is a business meeting, not a mixer. You should be happy I even brought you along."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mantis snuffles her feet and quietly, stiffly, says, "I am not a pet".</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ego just scowls. He runs a hand through his hair, which has begun to show streaks of grey, and taps his foot impatiently. His eyebrows are raised incredulously, as if he can’t believe what he’s hearing. "Well, what would you rather I call you? It’s not like you’re my kid or anything." He turns his back to her and cackles, trailing after the Maw. "My daughter", he bellows, his voice bouncing off the walls and sending a wince through both Mantis and the Maw. "Would kneel at my side and assist me in ruling, well, everything!" At the look Maw tosses back at him, Ego stutters, smiling sheepishly as he amends, “Er, fifty percent of everything”.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mantis doesn't follow them. She wraps her arms around herself, sniffles, and sucks in her lower lip. Already, she can feel her sadness, eager to leap out and disperse throughout the ship like a tidal wave over a small town. She did that once, during the second month of Ego’s Take Your NotDaughter To Work Day tour. Ego had gotten mad and forbidden her breakfast and dinner for three days.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She's gotten much better at managing her powers since then.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But she's only six years old. She still has a lot to learn.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"You shouldn't cry", a voice says, startling Mantis out of her thoughts.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>A girl steps out from the shadows. She's eating a yaro root, although it doesn't look very ripe. She takes a bite, makes a face, and says, "It's worse if you cry. They’ll use it against you".</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Well, Mantis knows that. But it's not as if she can control it. Not anymore than she already is. She swipes a hand across her face, sniffles, and looks the girl up and down. "Are you a Child of Thanos?" She certainly acts like one, if she’s to believe the rumors she's heard.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The girl’s eyes widen inexplicably, followed by the flaring of her nostrils and the clenching of her fists. Even without touching her or gently prying at her emotive field, Mantis can tell that she is very angry. "He takes care of me, yes”, the girl states, narrowing her eyes. “Are you Ego’s pet?"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mantis doesn't answer, but she really doesn't have to. It's rather obvious.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>They stand there a moment in silence. It grows uncomfortable the longer it lasts, and Mantis finds herself poking her brains for ways to initiate conversation. Smalltalk, Ego once called it. Something simple, casual, obvious. She beams wide and says to the girl, "My master says your father will be good for business”.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The girl doesn't miss a beat, though she does tilt her head to the side before replying, “I guess so".</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mantis just nods. She knows it’s not good business, but it’s a relief to have found someone who agrees with her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The girl is Mantis’s age. Her soul doesn’t seem old, per se, but it seems stiff, like a dandelion, once so soft and carefree, plucked from the ground and left to be preserved in a scrapbook. She’s blue like the sky just before a nightburst, and there are parts of her body that are metallic and cold. Everything about her screams ice and aversion, even the faint but fierce emotions she projects. But within that ice, there is water, a clear, crystal water, like the kind that flows freely from mountain springs. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>She, Mantis decides, is fascinating.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"My name's Mantis", she says softly.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The girl quietly replies, just when Ego returns and moves to take Mantis away, "I’m Nebula".</span>
</p><p>
  <span>. . .</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Later, Mantis tells Ego she thinks she made a friend.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ego just laughs; it’s a loud laugh, the kind that makes him double over and hold his stomach. He swipes a tear from his eye. "Kid, no one would be friends with you. You can't even do anything ‘cept put people to sleep and make them cry.” He stands up, shoulders still bouncing as he looks down at her, a cruel smile upon his face. “Besides, that kid's gonna be a freak when she grows up. Look at her daddy." He pats her cheek, then leaves, his laughter echoing in the hall of the Palace as he goes. "Friends”, his voice bounces back at her, amusement curling about the word. “Kid, I swear, you crack me up sometimes."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mantis narrows her eyes, allowing herself to feel </span>
  <em>
    <span>annoyed</span>
  </em>
  <span>, then turns her gaze back to the window, to where the </span>
  <em>
    <span>Sanctuary II</span>
  </em>
  <span> had parked itself just hours earlier. She cushions her arms into a pillow and rests her head there, eyelids drifting closed a few moments later.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Nebula</span>
  </em>
  <span>, her brain whispers at her, and sleep comes effortlessly.</span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Feedback's always appreciated! Thanks for reading!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Just a quick little chapter. Exploring more of Mantis and Ego's relationship (it still sucks) and further establishing Mantis and Nebula's.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Ego thinks Mantis’s lack of control over her powers is funny, up until the point where she cant walk into a room without making everyone in it keel over in agony or hysteria. With Ego having been around Mantis since she was a larva, he’s developed a sort of immunity, so it’s no bother to him. It is, however, a bother to his business partners. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Rather than endure the absolute torture of being deprived of his entertainment, Ego hires a "specialist" to assist her during his business meetings. That way, he can still show them of without worrying about her accidentally causing someone to have a stroke.  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mantis doesn't like the “specialist” very much and tells them so. The woman stutters, falling silent before a soft smile blossoms over her face. It’s a nice smile, one which would comfort Mantis if not for the fact that the woman’s anger is almost suffocating, it's so potent. It’s like a typhoon, threatening to submerge her underneath water until her mouth fills with water and her lungs explode.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mantis runs away, but Ego runs after her and scoops her up before delivering her back to the specialist, making her sit with the happy-angry specialist and practice breathing and thinking quietly. Afterwards, Ego bids the confusing woman goodbye, smiling happily before he sees her off the planet. Then he looks over his shoulder, his eyes scarily empty. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>No meals at all for six days, this time.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It winds up working in his favor, she supposes. Because as it turns out, it's hard to emote when you're on the verge of starving.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ego makes note of this and limits her meals to one a day.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"I can see why he and my-and Thanos don't get along", Nebula murmurs while they’re at a market on a nearby moon one day. "They’re exactly the same."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mantis watches her pay for their yarrow root smoothies, blushing down to her toes when her stomach gives an audible rumble. Nebula pretends she doesn't hear it, though, and Mantis thinks that's a nice thing.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"My siblings are the same", Nebula says as they take a seat at a hoverbooth. "They can't stand each other for the same things they do."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mantis nods and slurps at her smoothie. She doesn't like yarrow roots very much, but it's been so long since she's had anything this sweet. Or anything beyond the nutrition bars Ego gives her each day at noon. She can't imagine pushing it away.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"How many siblings do you have?", she asks, swinging her legs back and forth beneath her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Nebula scoops some smoothie out of her glass and into her mouth. "More than I can count."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mantis blinks into her glass. She drags her straw through its gooey contents and considers the big, empty halls of Ego’s palace. "It must be hard to get lonely."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"It’s not, and I hate them", Nebula bites out bitterly. Mantis presses her lips together, rendered dizzy by the massive wave of</span>
  <em>
    <span> hate</span>
  </em>
  <span> crashing over her. Nebula’s quiet for a moment, her anger retreating like the tides on a lazy beach. She stares down at the counter. She’s tired...sad...hurt. "Except Gamora. Sometimes".</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Gamora</span>
  </em>
  <span>, Mantis thinks. </span>
  <em>
    <span>The green sister</span>
  </em>
  <span>. Nebula talks about her a lot. Her feelings about her are very messy, very tangled, but that’s how Nebula’s feelings about most things are. If Mantis were so confused about her own feelings, she thinks she’d be tired a lot, too. "I think I would like a sister", she eventually tells Nebula, downing the last of her smoothie. "They seem pleasant."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Nebula doesn't say anything to that. She just sips at the last of her smoothie, then tosses it away, and orders them some cake.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mantis’s stomach grumbles again. She finishes her slice quickly. She doesn’t feel full exactly, but she does seem content. She watches Nebula go to order three more slices and says, in awe, “You always have so much money”.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>There’s another long, quiet minute. Mantis has moved onto her third slice when Nebula mutters, “It’s his way of making sure I don’t run away. I wouldn’t survive on my own”.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mantis looks up from her cake, eyes big as she stares at Nebula. With how often she burrows into Nebula’s head, it’s kind of embarrassing how easy it is to forget about </span>
  <em>
    <span>him</span>
  </em>
  <span>. But Nebula always seems to happy to forget, to pretend that he doesn’t exist, that it’s normal for two kids their age to be out on another planet all on their own. And maybe Mantis wants to forget, too.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Maybe it’s better to forget. Even for just a moment. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You’re doing it again”, Nebula says, a warning note to her voice.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mantis startles, shrinking her emotive field away from Nebula’s. “Sorry”, she whispers. “I just...sorry.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Looking up from her lap, Nebula balls her hands up in the fabric of her pants; she looks so small. “What are you?”, she asks her, like she’s some sort of math equation.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It makes Mantis grow tense, the way she always does when someone asks her that question. </span>
  <em>
    <span>What are you? Why are you like this? Why do you do that? Why can’t you just be how I tell you to be when I tell you to be it? </span>
  </em>
  <span>“I am just like you”, Mantis snaps, shoving her last slice of cake away from her. All of a sudden, its taste had grown quite sour.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She can feel her anger, lashing out from her center, aching to break free and lay upon everyone within her immediate vicinity. She is a supernova of emotion, leaving everyone quaking underneath the force of her. One lapse and it all comes crashing down, everyone collapses. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>But she keeps it controlled, keeps it tightly coiled within her. Because she has to. Because she doesn’t want to hurt anyone. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Not anymore. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mantis swallows and says, “I’m just like you. I just...I just see in emotions”.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“...What do you see in me?”, Nebula wonders, voice hesitant like she isn’t sure whether or not she should ask. Then, seeming to have decided against it, she shakes her head. “Wait. Don’t tell me.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>There’s the confusion again. She says she doesn’t want to know, but she’s projecting, and she </span>
  <em>
    <span>does</span>
  </em>
  <span> want to know. As she’s coming to see, people don’t always act the way they feel. They’d much rather prefer to act in a different way, one which often contradicts how they actually feel. It provides something of a conundrum for Mantis, who buries herself in the emotions of others in order to avoid feeling her own. She lives in a perpetual state of confusion, but even that is better than feeling nothing at all.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Nebula leads Mantis back to her ship, yelling at the pilot to take them back to Ego. They both strap into their seats, settling in for the journey.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The stars are still streaking beside them when Nebula quietly, but desperately, says, “Tell me”.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mantis tells her. </span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Feedback's always appreciated! I love hearing what readers are thinking😊😊😊. Thanks for reading and I'll see y'all next week!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Chapter 3</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Kind of a sad chapter, concerned mostly with Ego's kids. If that's a sensitive subject for you, I'd suggest skipping this one.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Mantis is eight years old the first time and last time she yells at Ego.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He's found another one of his Children, a fact which never ceases to make her feel a twinge of ugly, charring envy, quivering in her chest like a parasite wriggling about a septic wound. She never voices her frustrations, but every so often, her control will waver, and a tendril of pure, unbridled </span>
  <em>
    <span>green</span>
  </em>
  <span> will greet Ego. Naturally, he never says anything, just stares down at Mantis, disappointment colored brightly in his eyes, a silent statement of “You should know better” seeming to meet her ears as if he were a telepath.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>You should know better than to think yourself worthy of being his Child.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>That’s usually how these “scouting missions” go. He’ll allow her to tag along, positioned appropriately out of sight and thoroughly out of mind, and she’ll stand there the whole time, stewing in her own repugnant stench, like her mind is a polluted lake, ruined and poisoned beyond the hope of recovery.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But this time is different. This time, he doesn’t treat her like she’s some flea he’s begrudgingly resigned a coexistence to. This time, Ego treats her like he almost would a person. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>In the back of her mind, Mantis wonders what could’ve prompted the change, what could’ve changed his storm clouds to soft, inviting blue skies. But in the front of her mind, she’s just thinking of how it’s been months since he last looked at her with anything but contempt and how so very </span>
  <em>
    <span>nice</span>
  </em>
  <span> it is to have him smile at her again.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I think it’s about time”, Ego’s saying as they’re marching through underbrush, snickering as Mantis swats at bugs trying to have a bite at her. Whatever pain she feels is quickly nulled by the fact that he’s actually </span>
  <em>
    <span>laughing</span>
  </em>
  <span>. It’s been so long since he was in this good a mood.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>If she plays her cards right, she might even be able to convince him to up her meals to two a day. It’s a lot to ask, but what has she to lose? She doubts even he would subject her to a mere snack a day. She’s weak enough as it is, and, as he puts it, he needs her at her A game.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m sure it is”, Mantis stutters out, barely suppressing a yelp at the sight of a snake oozing along the path.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Some don’t exactly have the stomach for it.” Ego lifts a hand, and the tree before them incinerates. Mantis blinks, staring down at where only the roots of the tree remain. Almost as if there had never been a tree in the first place. Ego snaps his fingers, and Mantis hurries along to catch up with him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You’re not exactly my Daughter”, Ego says, watching Mantis intently before refocusing his attention on the path of red pebbles ahead. “But you are my assistant, I suppose is the word, and anyone travelling with the Mighty Ego needs to develop a thick skin.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mantis nods, kicking pebbles out from underneath her. Despite Ego’s almost infectious good mood, she feels herself growing anxious. Whatever it is they’re doing on this planet, he certainly isn’t painting a good picture of it. Although, now that she really thinks about it, there aren’t many things Ego enjoys that aren’t at the expense of another.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’d like to meet one of your Children”, Mantis whispers and realizes, with a start, that for all his boasting of their greatness, she’s never actually met one of his Children. Come to think of it, once they leave their planets, she never even </span>
  <em>
    <span>feels</span>
  </em>
  <span> them again, like their souls just disappeared in a puff of smoke, gone like the many trees unfortunate enough to have been in their paths.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Hang back a sec”, Ego says quietly, rushing down the mountainside as he continues to pulse out feelings of immeasurable happiness. And Mantis feels envy again because it’s been quite a while since she’s felt happiness like that; she is always hesitant about good fortune, always expecting the worst. And yet here stands Ego, undoubtedly about to cause someone some harm and feeling as an adolescent would upon exploring the galaxy for the first time.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mantis forces herself not to think about it, instead discreetly tunneling through the channels of Ego’s happiness, almost overwhelmed to the point of tears from how unfamiliar it’s become.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>A child steps into the clearing, seeming startled by the sight of Ego there. Ego just smiles and waves. “Hi there!”, he greets, and the child frowns, looking about the clearing before apprehensively saying, “Hey”.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ego steps closer, and it grows harder to remain in his head because his happiness is peeling away like the outside of an orange, revealing a mere pit of disappointment underneath. And it’s so very different from the disappointment he feels in Mantis, so distinct that it propels Mantis out of his head like she’s been slapped. She shakes her head, and her earlier apprehension greets her like submerging herself in a glacier lake because the child is </span>
  <em>
    <span>afraid</span>
  </em>
  <span>, and Ego is </span>
  <em>
    <span>angry.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>“Tadpole!”, Ego trills, craning his neck. When the child turns to look at her, their eyes wide and frantic, Mantis ducks her head, hiding behind a boulder. It’s a strange thing. For so long, she’s been such a disappointment to Ego. But in this moment? She’s never been more ashamed to be Ego’s “assistant”.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“That’s no way to make an introduction”, he calls out, voice just shy of threatening, and Mantis presses past her tears, slowly rising from where she’s crouched behind her boulder. Ego smiles, his hand gripped tightly around the tentacle-like appendages extending from the child’s head, and shouts, “Tell them your name, sweetheart”.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“M-Mantis.” She looks at the child, then asks, “What’s yours?”</span>
  <span>
    <br/>
  </span>
  <span>The child’s lower lip trembles as they open their mouth in reply. But Ego just squeezes harder, and the child cries out, the sound going straight to Mantis’s knees as their </span>
  <em>
    <span>terror</span>
  </em>
  <span> courses through her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I think that’s enough of that”, Ego tuts, shaking his head. “You see, Mantis, this is no Child of mine. Not really. And what is the point of having a child if they’re not really Mine?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It’s a small consolation, but she figures their death would be quick, and it would be painless. He would afford them the same treatment as he had the trees of the forest. Though, unlike the trees, she thinks there will be people who would remember them, who would grieve their loss and wonder what ever happened to their poor child?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mantis’s reaction is instantaneous and surprising. She throws out a hand, shrieks, and releases a tidal wave of grief and terror throughout the clearing. The child gets away but only in the seconds that Mantis’s assault lasts. Mantis collapses to her knees, only to be jerked back up as Ego’s hand suddenly finds its way around her throat. It clenches, tight, and Mantis gasps, clawing at grasp, her vision turning spotty.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Behind her, she can hear the sound of bones crunching.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The Child is dead.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"I'll forgive your insolence", Ego snarls, lifting a trembling finger to her face. "Just this once."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"You killed them", Mantis chokes, tears springing to her eyes as she struggles in his grip. "You killed all of them!"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Yes and I'll kill thousands more before your miserable speck of inexistence ends." He tosses her back, shaking his head disappointedly as he tosses her unceremoniously to the ground. "Damn it, I just can't catch a break today."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"You didn't have to kill them", she gasps. She wipes an arm past her eyes and heaves, breath sticking in her chest as she lays eyes upon the disjointed body lying beside her. "You could have just... let them go!" Her antennae are bobbing, glowing spitefully as the emotion wages within her. It’s been so long since she’s allowed herself to feel anything so deeply. It feels like she’s drowning in it, and it’s eager to lash out, but Egos watching her, almost daring, so Manris keeps it on a leash, no matter how strained it draws.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"I protected those children, tadpole. They had already seen me, and, hey, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know they were never gonna leave with me." His voice softens, and he crouches before her. He lifts a hand to press it against her cheek, bur Mantis turns away and clenches her fists at her sides. She considers it a minor miracle that he doesn’t immediately punish her for the act of defiance. "I know you don't understand, but their lives were never gonna be the same, even if they had inherited my Spark. Hey. Think of it like this." He squeezes her shoulder and smiles. "They would have led meaningless, dull, purposeless lives. I just saved them a hell of a lot of heartache. In a way." He laughs and shakes his head. "It's kind of a mercy killing. And hey, I made ‘em! It’s kinda my right to decide when to unmake them.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mantis eyes water. Her lower lip trembles as she looks up at him, sniffles, and asks, "What's my purpose, Master?"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>If possible, Ego just smiles wider. He seems delighted by the question, as if he’s been waiting his entire life to be asked that very question. Somehow, Mantis doesn’t find his spirit quite as infectious as she had before "Why, to serve me, of course!”, he bellows, disturbing a flock of avians resting in the tree above them. “And no questions asked, I might add”, Ego continues, reaching out to flick her nose. “No rebuttals, no inputs, and, under no circumstances, no interventions. We copacetic?"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mantis eyes flood with tears. It’s getting hard to see. "I don't know what that means!"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"And that's the best part about it!" He wipes his hands against his thighs, dusting the dirt and grime from himself, and rises to his feet. "You don't have to! Because I do."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>With that, Ego turns and starts back up the hill, his child's corpse hovering beside him. "Follow me, gumdrop! I need to show you my inventory; I'm telling ya, it's gonna knock your socks off."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Numbly, Mantis follows along, unbothered by the bitter bigs and prickly branches as they make their way back through the forest and towards his ship. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He takes them back home, disposing of the child’s remains inside of a cave that Mantis is sure will provide her nightmare-fuel for the rest of her life. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You’ll get used to it”, Ego says as Mantis stares at the mountain of children’s carcasses before her. “You’re gonna have to if you plan on sticking around.”</span>
  <span>
    <br/>
  </span>
  <span>Mantis doesn’t grace that with a response. She just folds her hands in front of her, sternly focuses her attention on drawing in one breath after the other, and thinks of the child’s eyes and how they’d gone to her, how expectant they’d been. How disappointed they must’ve been. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>She figures that’s another thing she’ll have to get used to. </span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Thanks for reading! I know this one was kind of a downer, but the next one's got to do with birthdays so yay!<br/>On a side note, most of this fic is gonna be sad soooooo keep that in mind if you weren't really looking for angst going into this.<br/>Lemme know what you think and I'll see y'all next week 😘😘😘.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Chapter 4</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Ego takes her to her first bar well before her toes can even reach the ground, then leaves her and runs off to "attend to interpersonal matters".</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mantis does not order anything because she already ate yesterday, but she does accept the tropical ice-cream the bartender offers her in exchange for "convincing" their health inspector to vacate the premises.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>People make requests like that a lot. Keep a spouse preoccupied with a sudden fascination for jewelry while they pay off a dealer behind their back. Give a daughter courage to tell her parents about the school she’s been hoping to attend. Sprinkle a “pick me up” for a man in “dire need for antidepressants” despite having the sunniest skies Mantis has seen in quite a while. After so many years, Mantis has grown used to the requests. They’re usually Ego’s friends, but also strangers he runs into on the street when he's in an entertaining mood.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"If you barf, you leave", the bartender grumbles, olfactory-tentacles quivering at the sight of Mantis quickly shoveling her fourth bowl of ice cream into her mouth. "Shit, kid, doesn't he feed you?"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"When I don't mess up", Mantis replies, blinking back against a brain freeze..</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She got one of those when she was last with Nebula. It's been a while since she's seen her, but that's not that weird. Nebula’s pretty busy. Nebula has a job and can't afford to lounge around on a planet, day in and day out, the way Mantis does. At least, that’s what Ego says, and Nebula’s always pretty quiet about her job, so it’s not like Mantis can exactly ask her. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>She starts to get sad, so she thinks of something happier, like the snail she found outside her windowsill this morning. It was slimy and gross but kind of cute, too. Mantis thought of putting it in a jar, but she knows what it’s like to feel trapped somewhere, so she didn’t do that.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She thinks of it though. Its shell was red and freckled with purple spots. And its eyes, they were so funny and cute looking.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>There aren’t a lot of things like that on Ego. And the ones that are, they never last very long. To Mantis, it seems almost a waste. Such a beautiful planet and yet, it’s incapable of sustaining even the most basic forms of life. Not for inherent incapability, of course, but because of Ego’s </span>
  <em>
    <span>rules</span>
  </em>
  <span>. And according to Ego’s rules, nothing uglier than he is allowed to exist, with Mantis, of course, being the sole exception. “Only because I’m nice”, he’d said with a grin, to which Mantis returned with a dim twitch of a smile.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Tiny</span>
  </em>
  <span>, she’d called the snail that would no doubt face a death sooner than imagined, watching it inch across the sill and disappear into the foliage fanning Egos Palace.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Maybe one day, she'll see it again.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Maybe, she won’t.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ego returns a few hours later when the sun’s begun to come up, red in the face and clothes rumpled, but not before Mantis catches sight of a family standing around a pastry and softly singing a song. Terrans, she recognizes as her translator quickly makes work of the odd-sounding words. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>"What's a birthday?", she asks the bartender. The bartender just shifts his gaze to Ego, flares his tentacles, and turns his attention back to cleaning the glass cup in his hands.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>. . .</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Months later, when Nebula has a break between assignments, Mantis tells her about birthdays.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She looked them up on the InterHub and spent two whole days reading about them, just so she could have all the answers to the questions Nebula would undoubtedly have.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Only, Mantis brings up the subject of birthdays, and Nebula just brushes it off as a "silly, distractive" pastime to trick people into believing they are something special.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Do you have a birthday?", Mantis asks, and Nebula rolls her eyes.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Of course I have a birthday. Two, actually, but I don't accept the one Thanos gave me."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mantis nods. She tosses a stress ball between her hands and idly notes, "I don't have a birthday. And I dont think Ego gave me one". Nebula looks up from where she's tinkering with the watch she’d offered to fix for Mantis and stares at her. Mantis smiles and says, "I gave myself one, though".</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Oh." Nebula looks back at the watch. "What day is it?"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"The 3rd rotation. It was the day I found my first snail."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Thinly, Nebula smiles. Her soul is like that of a timid flower, its petals folding in reverse in the presence of anyone or anything. It’s a strange feeling, but Mantis surrounds herself in it all the same, pleasantly startled when Nebula mutters, "Happy late birthday”.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Later, Nebula’s crawling out Mantis’s window when Mantis grabs her by her forearm and whispers, "I would like to see you more often".</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Nebula doesn’t turn from where she's angled between the poofy confines of Mantis’s room and the outside world. "I am an assassin. I don't have time to see people." </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“...Of course.” Ego’s words come back to her, as well as the sneer he’d worn as he’d said them. She feels </span>
  <em>
    <span>embarrassment </span>
  </em>
  <span>and </span>
  <em>
    <span>anger</span>
  </em>
  <span> flush within her. At Nebula, at Ego, at herself. It’s not fair of her to feel these things, but she feels them all the same. What a shame. She thought she’d gotten rather good at not feeling anything at all. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“...But I could call you”, Nebula finishes, clenching and unclenching her fists. She still won’t face her, but the flower is blooming, petals tentatively opening, as if searching for signs of immediate danger as it does so. “Sometime."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mantis keeps her hope on a leash, a taut, short leash. She swallows, then breathlessly says, "I would like that very much."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Nebula looks at her out of the corner of her eye. She bites her lip. "As would I."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And then she's gone.</span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Thanks for reading!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. Chapter 5</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>At eleven years old, Mantis comes to the realization that she'll probably die on Ego’s planet.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Not because she's his Child and all his Children die here. Ego’s rejected any measure of fatherhood on more occasions than she can count, so she knows it’s not that.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>No. She's something more to him. And yet, at the same time, something less. It’s a contradiction that baffles her to no means, and no matter how long she ponders on it, it doesn’t make sense. She supposes it’s the same for Ego, if he’s even begun to consider his conflicting nature.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Whatever it is, it’s a strong enough connection that he won't just let Mantis leave him, not without any assurance that she’ll return.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It doesn't bother her, she decides, watchung his sun set over his mountains. She's in her window again, head resting in the pillow her arms make, and watching the world grow cold and dark, much like his own heart. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>And why would it bother her? This is all she's ever really known. It's not like she has much else to ask for.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"You're really growing into your powers, my little tadpole. I can feel you brooding from miles away." Coming from anyone else, the statement might’ve been delivered with a sort of buoyancy, with an underlying note of cheer, a teasing lilt, a pillowing cloud of joy just barely covering the small but significant cloud of worry. Coming from Ego, the statement carries not even the slightest hint of happiness or worry or sadness.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He’s angry. Disappointed, annoyed, but, above all else, angry.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Yes, well, Mantis is, too.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"What am I to you?", Mantis asks, not averting her gaze from the view before her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ego just sighs. "I thought we'd discussed this kid. You're not my daughter, that’s for damn sure."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Tears bead in Mantis’s eyes. "Maybe...maybe I could be." It’s a horrid thought, Ego being a parent to anyone, but it’s one she finds herself dreaming of all the same. And sitting here, with him listening like he seldom ever does, she can almost picture it. She's seen fathers with their daughters before, how happy, how delighted they feel when they toss them above their heads, or first allow them to pilot spacecraft.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>That could be them. They could be happy, and Ego’s never happy, so it's not as if he has anything to lose.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ego’s amusement is like muggy air on a hot summer day, curling about her lungs and giving the ever-so distinct feeling of suffocating. His amusement is the phantom of pain, tortuous as she seeks out good air only to take in the sort that leaves her dizzy and motionless.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ego just chuckles, shakes his head, and says, "Yeah and maybe I could actually find someone that isn’t an immense, visceral disappointment to everything I stand for. There's a lot of maybes in life."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He closes the door behind him and doesn't look back.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mantis keeps her gaze on the sunset, on the mountains, on the telltale sight of starcraft streaking just above their orbit.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>There are a lot of maybes. But there are hardly any absolutes.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>. . .</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She starts leaving.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Not off planet, she's not an idiot, but she ventures further out and away from Ego, when she has the chance. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Distance</span>
  </em>
  <span>, he used to tell her. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Keep your distance, nobody wants YOU in their bubble.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>Well, now, Mantis is keeping her distance. And she likes to think she’s getting pretty damn good at it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>No one else lives on Ego, but there are lots of places to visit. And when Nebula returns, Mantis thinks she'd like to show them to her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Only, the rotations keep coming, and Nebula never does.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And of course Mantis always knew it was a possibility. Nebula’s one of the best assassins she's ever seen, she tells her so every time she sees her. Of course, Mantis has never met another assassin (unless you count Ego), so that probably doesn’t stand for much.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>In any case, it’s not all that surprising when Nebula visits dwindle down to nothing. Even the best sometimes meet their match.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>For three years, Mantis presumes Nebulas met hers. She grieves her, like she's never had the chance to, and wonders if Thanos had even the grace to bestow her a proper burial.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And then she returns, with more cybernetics than ever and a missing arm. Nebula pauses in the field she's landed in and just stands there, holding Mantis’s eyes like it's the hardest thing she's ever done, and hoarsely states, “I’m back".</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Later, after they’ve hugged for a good bit and Mantis has pulled out of open-view, Nebula tells Mantis she was on a mission that went wrong and that Thanos had rather let her live with her injuries and survive on her own than offer his assistance.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"l have to leave soon", she murmurs when Mantis tugs on her hand and offers to let her spend the night. "He’ll notice I'm missing."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>They wind up cuddled together on the grass. It's different from their earlier hugs, when Nebula would hold her gently, pressed against her as if afraid if she truly held her, Mantis would disappear altogether. This hug is closer. More desperate. More afraid.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>What does an assassin see in three years? And how does a flea tell that assassin what she, herself, has seen in three years?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Sometimes I think you're not real", Mantis admits, watching as a school of bubbles passes over them. She sighs heavily, closing her eyes as she presses her head against Nebula’s chest. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>She's the only friend she's ever had, her best friend. But for all that she comes and goes and for the life she lives, she can't help but sometimes wonder if Nebula’s a meer product of her imagination, someone she’s dreamt up to cope with the madness that is living with Ego.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She's done some reading on children raised in solitary environments. It's amazing the things they can come up with.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"I think I'm more not real than real." Nebula’s voice is low as she says this; scared, even. She flexes her fingers, watching the parts bend and fold with a painful strain that greets Mantis like leaping into a cold mountain lake. Nebula doesn't mean real in the same way that Mantis means. She can tell.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mantis reaches out, grabs hold of her fingers, and squeezes. Then she slips them to the metal plating in her cheek, to the cybernetic leg, to the shiny eye. All metal, of course, but all very much Nebula. Vold and yet lively with fervent, tumultuous emotion.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"You feel real", she says, and fluid leaks from Nebula's new eye. "All of you."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"I hate him", Nebula whispers back.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"I know."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She watches her leave later, with a giant puff of exhaust fume and electricity. Ego comes up behind her, whistles, and says, "What I tell ya? A Class A freak".</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>I hate you.</span>
  </em>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0006"><h2>6. Chapter 6</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I'm actually really proud of this chapter, it went in a direction I hadn't at all expected, but I'm glad I got there anyway 😂😂😂.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>It’s her fourteenth year, give or take, when the thin leash Mantis has upon her power begins to wither away, like paint against a weather-beaten home. Nothing drastic, mind you, just a few slip ups here and there, reminiscent of her earlier years when she hadn’t known the repercussions of such slip ups.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But the thing is, with Mantis spending more time offworld than on, she isn’t spending as much time with Ego as she did as a child, so most of these incidents she’s able to keep to herself.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Well. To herself and to those around her. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>In a way, Mantis knows it was somewhat bashful, gullible, even, to presume anyone in the galaxy wouldn’t recognize her as Ego’s pet. And though it makes her blood boil like occupants swimming in an inconspicuous hot spring, she can’t really blame them. Should Ego have found out about these incidents and discovered someone had withheld informing him of them...it would’ve been worse for everyone.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He sentences her to a month in the dungeon, a place she hasn't been in since she was a toddler. He chains her to a wall, and Ego lets him because it’s not like she has many other options. When at last he’s finished, Ego takes a step back and just stares at Mantis. There’s a look in his eyes, one which she seldom ever sees. One which only ever graces his eyes whenever Mantis shows a fierce display of disobedience. She never quite knows what it means, only that the look always seems to suggest that they’re at a sort of crossroads.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>With a grunt, Ego lowers himself to a knee, the intensity behind his stare never once simmering. “I still don’t know what you are”, he muses, tilting his head to the side as he watches her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mantis just frowns, a slight shudder running up her spine as she pulls her knees close to her chest. “What...What do you mean?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ego just gestures to her, as if that explains anything. “Your people.” At the wide-eyed look he receives, he swats his hand through the air, as if batting off a fly. “I’ve asked around, looked around. No one knows anything. There are plenty of empaths, but none of ‘em are bugs.”</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>I’m not a bug</span>
  </em>
  <span>, Mantis thinks, gritting her teeth as </span>
  <em>
    <span>annoyance</span>
  </em>
  <span> pulses against her barriers, seeking to wash over him like a tidal wave over a beach of unsuspecting vacationers.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Maybe Thanos got to ‘em”, Ego wonders aloud, and Mantis can’t help the unbridled fury that seeps from her. His eyebrows raised, Ego smirks and says, “I hear you, kiddo. Can’t stand his ass either”.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>That’s...surprising. She’d never heard more of Ego’s deal with the Mad Titan, had never had reason to question him of it. She had always just assumed it’d gone their way, that whatever plans they’d had had been carried to fruition, that the partnership had met an amicable end.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Although, considering who the two are, perhaps it’s not so surprising. Sometimes, people of the same mind can become the best of friends. Other times, they can become the worst of enemies.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“...it’s a disgrace”, Ego’s saying, and Mantis turns her head to look at him, noting that the humor within his eyes has long-since faded. Gone is the brief flicker of light within his soul, instead replaced with a darkness that rivals even that of the night sky, a darkness that seems sickly, corruptive, wicked.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ego twirls the key to Mantis’s chains around his fingers, his eyes startlingly empty. “I thought we’d come to an agreement”, he says casually as he rises to his feet so that he towers over her. Having yet to finish growing, Mantis always has to look up at him, but never quite as much as now. Never has she felt so small.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“We did”, she replies meekly.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“If so, then why do we keep ending up here?” He turns his back to her and sighs, like he’s been disappointed deep to his core. “I’ve been lenient, is that it? Gotten to be too soft on you. You know, my old man always said a soft kid is a more dangerous kid than the one that picks fights with everything that moves.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mantis just purses her lips and evenly states, “You never had a father”.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ego stutters in his speech, blinking three quick blinks before looking back down at her. “Oh. I guess not.” He shrugs, spinning his keyring into the air, watching it rotate several times before snatching it back within his grasp. “The sentiment still stands.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Maybe if you had a father”, Mantis continues, fear trembling beneath the pool of anger that’s begun to trickle away into nothing. “You would be nicer to me.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She knows the flaws in the statement, knows them even before Ego rushes to inform her of them, but she doesn’t care. And it’s such a </span>
  <em>
    <span>strange</span>
  </em>
  <span>, </span>
  <em>
    <span>empowering</span>
  </em>
  <span> thing to not care. All her life, she’s sought apathy, sought it like a kite lost to the wind, and yet here it is, coiled so tightly around her she hadn’t recognized it. Mantis rolls back her shoulders, ignoring the jingle of her chains, and swallows.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>There’s a power beneath her skin. It’s always been there, always been pushed away, beaten down, stomped out. And she can feel it, Mantis can feel it bubbling up within her like a toxic gas, threatening to suffocate her and all around her. Mantis is so busy focusing on it that she doesn’t realize the true meaning to the words, not until the sound of Ego choking meets her ears.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ego is doubled over, tears streaking down his cheeks as he howls with laughter, gasping desperately for air. His eyes are upon Mantis, pleading, begging. And Mantis just stares, absolutely enraptured because </span>
  <em>
    <span>this</span>
  </em>
  <span> is not her power. Her power is to entertain people, to put them to sleep when they’ve grown weary of antics. Mantis’s power is what Ego dictates it to be, and this most definitely is not it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She won’t deny the pride that courses through her, blossoming like a flower after a long drought, petals of light arching towards the sun, tentative and yet hopeful. Because Mantis has no power. She is Ego’s pet, his assistant, his party-trick, nothing more and nothing else, and Ego simply </span>
  <em>
    <span>is</span>
  </em>
  <span>. He </span>
  <em>
    <span>is</span>
  </em>
  <span> a planet, he </span>
  <em>
    <span>is </span>
  </em>
  <span>the giver of life, he </span>
  <em>
    <span>is </span>
  </em>
  <span>power.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And yet somehow, this time, it is Mantis who brings Ego to his knees, who overwhelms him so much with his own power that he seems to be on the brink of death. A feat which, up until this very moment, Mantis hadn’t even realized she was doing it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Trembling, Mantis reigns in her power, and Ego takes in one deep breath, his hysterical laughter giving way to uncontrollable coughing. Mantis presses herself closer to the wall of the dungeon, seeking as much space between she and Ego as possible.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>When Ego gathers himself, he takes a moment to just stay there, still keeled over. He raises his head, eyes still red and puffy with tears. His face is contorted with rage, and there are tremors wracking his body as well, like the quake of the ground just before a volcano erupts.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>For a long seven minutes, he doesn’t say anything, just stares at her, like an animal deciding whether or not to pounce. And as the minutes pass, a strange feeling overtakes Mantis. It’s the same pride as before, yet mingled with a fear that spirals deep within her. This feeling, it comes with the knowledge that Ego isn’t deciding to pounce but rather has already decided not to.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Because he is afraid</span>
  </em>
  <span>, Mantis realizes, and the thought frightens anymore than any punishment he’s ever dished out on her. Because an angry Ego, a disappointed Ego, a </span>
  <em>
    <span>bored</span>
  </em>
  <span> Ego, those, at least she can predict.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But fear can drive a person to do things they would never do in any other state of mind. And so the waiting becomes tortuous, a prelude to whatever pain awaits her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>In the end, Ego rises to his feet, his hands shaking at his sides. He glares at her, his own power swirling around him like a protective fog as he mutters, “You’ve just earned yourself an extra month, kiddo”. And with that, he leaves, slamming the door shut behind him without so much as a backwards glance.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>He’s afraid of me</span>
  </em>
  <span>, Mantis thinks once more before slowly leaning over and falling asleep against the freezing floor. </span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Thanks for reading! Let me know what you think!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0007"><h2>7. Chapter 7</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>OKAY, so Imma be updating the tags, but there's noncon/sexual assault in this chapter, as well as alcohol and drug abuse, so please be careful if those are triggers for you.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>She gets drunk on the eve of her sixteenth birthday. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ego’s offplanet somewhere, and Nebula's back on assignment, leaving Mantis all alone, with the weight of the galaxy’s tumultuous emotions pressing down on her. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>And Mantis...Mantis is a weak woman. So when the voices, the drowning sensations of grief and envy and </span>
  <em>
    <span>hatred</span>
  </em>
  <span>, grow to be too loud, Mantis staggers into one of Ego’s ships and flies to the nearest moon, stumbling into a bar long before alcohol’s gotten into her system. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>She feels horribly out of place, but something about her just makes it all the more exciting. This was also Ego’s place, and it was always Mantis’s role to remain out of sight until he decided his companions had grown enough. To be here now, of her own volition, with her own, admittedly, blurred goals.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It’s euphoric, in a way that she doubts any substance ever will be. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Be that as it may, Mantis still orders a drink and just about loses her stomach at her first sip.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She loses herself in the drunkenness of her fellow bar patrons, in their happiness, in their floatiness, in their aggression. It’s all so wonderfully fulfilling. And yet, in feeling it through others, it’s also incredibly </span>
  <em>
    <span>empty</span>
  </em>
  <span>, and it’s such a relief because no Ego will never know. He will never know that on this night, Mantis ventured out and actually had fun.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Hey, there.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mantis blinks, her head drooping as she takes in the fuzzy sight of a woman made of ice sliding into the seat beside her. She’s a couple years her senior, and her mind is like that of a cactus, all prickly edges and threats of pain.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But it’s just so...it’s just so nice to feel anything at all, to be so absolutely drenched in emotion and not have to worry about being punished for it. “Hello, there”, Mantis beams, and the woman gives her a smirk that makes her stomach feel funny. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>She never gets the woman’s name, but she’s pretty nice. She listens to Mantis babble, then buys her drink after drink after drink until the room spins.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Sometime later, the woman shoves her up against the wall and kisses her, rough and demanding and all around very unpleasant until Mantis kisses her back. Mantis feels </span>
  <em>
    <span>fear</span>
  </em>
  <span> (and it’s her own) as a tongue slips into her mouth and a hand slithers into her pants, and she just stands there, absolutely frozen, until the woman scampers off.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She never gets the woman’s name, and, drunk as she is, Mantis knows she wouldn’t recognize her face if someone pointed it out to her in a lineup. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>She gets into a fight a little while later with a Kree soldier, breaks a few ribs and nearly loses an antenna in the process.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Happy birthday to me.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>. . .</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She kills for Ego for the first and last time on the Solstice. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He's picked up another one of his Children, and, per the norm, has asked Mantis to watch them while he gets his "attraction" together. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He's only been gone a minute when the Child, a girl from a planet once made entirely of comets, throws a blaster at her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Kill me", the girl whispers and pulls out a whip, eyes wide and frantic as she approaches Mantis.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mantis takes a step back and shows her her palms. "I...I am just his servant”, she protests, gritting her teeth at the stutter to her words. “It is out of my hands, I'm not-"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"We hear tale of the one they call Ego", the Child hisses and cracks her whip at her. "I would rather face anything than die by his hand. Even death."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The whip strikes Mantis, clean across the face. She cries out and stumbles, instinctively throwing out her hands to incapacitate the Child, only to ball them into fists at the last moment and just stand there. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>When Mantis looks into her eyes, she sees her own fear reflected back at her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>If she had the chance, would she, too, have chosen death?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>There's some back and forth, some shouting, some bitter, scathing wounds distributed between them both, before Mantis shrieks and ruptures the girls brain with an overload of emotion. It was quick. Painless.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Merciful.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"She didn't have It in her anyway", Ego says later, almost prodily. "You're getting to be just like your old man!"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mantis doesn't say anything. She eats a full course meal for the first time in months and stares down at her hands, “close to me-liness clean”, as Ego likes to put it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>So why does she feel so dirty?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>. . .</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It’s a couple of months later, and the drinking’s become something of a regular. Ego looks at her kind of funny, like he's amused, but he never says anything, just raises an imaginary glass and winks at her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Once, when she was bored and trembling underneath the silence of the palace. She gets high off some powder from Knowhere, but the hallucinations kind of freak her out, so she tends to stick to liquids.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She likes how drowsy it makes her feel, how it dilutes the emotions within and surrounding her. It just makes everything all the more manageable.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Course, it probably doesn't help that Mantis takes to bar fights like a moth to a flame, but it’s whatever. There are plenty of bars in the galaxy. She can always find another one. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>She likes the taste. Some more than others, but there's this Asgardian ale that she really likes. It makes the world like a record player, and if Mantis drinks enough, it’s like someone dialed it down to its lowest speed.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ego offers her more Children to kill, and, when she declines, tells her to sit in and watch him do it herself. There's no declining that.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She's drunk most of the time now. It's like a second consciousness almost, one which keeps her giggly and lighthearted in a way that she hasn’t felt in years, maybe never.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Like clouds have settled upon her brain, brushing aside all the chaotic storm clouds and leaving a soft, fluffy atmosphere in their wake.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"I dont know what brought this on", Ego slurs one afternoon, toasting to whatever the fuck they agreed upon. "But I'm damn happy for it!"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mantis is, too. So happy, in fact, that she frequently loses control and sends waves of elation pulsing from the planet. They get quite a few complaints about it, mostly space travellers who've got enough to worry about without considering the artificial emotions of a drunk.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ego takes care of them, though.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And for the first time in years, she feels like she belongs somewhere.</span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Feedback's always appreciated! See y'all next week.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0008"><h2>8. Chapter 8</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>She has her first kiss and her first fight with Nebula when she's eighteen, all on the same night, too.</span>
</p><p><span>Nebula had gotten worried about Mantis’s drinking and had asked her to ease up on it ("Why?</span> <span>Because I don’t want to see my best friend drive herself into a coma, that’s why!"), and Mantis had promised, and she’d kept that promise for the most part. Her relationship with Nebula had been fine, so fine that Nebula, evidently, thought it fit to kiss her.</span></p><p>
  <span>Which it was, in Mantis’s humble opinion, because she's been thinking of Nebula in that way for quite some time. But Nebula’s tongue has these sensory nodes on them that, apparently, pick up on tastes pretty quick. She waited ‘til after she finished kissing Mantis silly in the bedsheets to bring it up, though, and when Mantis just told her, deadpan, that she wasn't drunk, she stormed out their rented room without another word.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And for the record, Mantis tried to run after her, but she tripped and cracked her head on the headboard, so that didn't happen.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>When she next awakens, it's to the sight of a dripping candle and lazy flames engulfing the room.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Honestly, if that isn't just the sum of her life, she doesn't know what is.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The fire is stretching towards the ceiling like a freshly-bloomed flower does to the sun. And for a moment, Mantis just lies there, blood pooling inelegantly from the back of her head, as her hair begins to singe and her breathing turns laboured. Head dizzy, she pushes herself into a seated position, wrapping the </span>
  <em>
    <span>panic</span>
  </em>
  <span> and </span>
  <em>
    <span>terror</span>
  </em>
  <span> bleeding from across the wall around her like a cozy blanket.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She just barely stumbles out of the motel in time. Above the roar of the flames, she can hear Nebula shouting, over and over again, "That’s my girlfriend in there!" Mantis is miway through the hall of the main entrance, deciding how she likes the sound of “girlfriend” on her tongue, when she collapses and blanks out again.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>When she next wakes up, it’s in the back of an emergency transport hovercraft. The EMTs are monitoring her vitals but, otherwise, unperturbed by anything.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Neula’s crouched beside her gurney. She's holding her hand, tight enough to make the colors of their skin match, until she realizes Mantis is awake. Then she drops it, her hand falling to her side like a whale’s carcass descending to the body of the ocean, and looks away.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"I’m alive", Mantis says, wheezing, like it's an argument.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Nebula grunts, and it gets even harder to breathe.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"You called me girlfriend."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"You almost died”, Nebula stutters, picking at a loose wiring in her arm. “Y-You must have heard me wrong."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The ride to the hospital passes in silence. Mantis is too exhausted, emotionally and physically, to attempt to fill it. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>When they go to wheel her in, Nebula doesn't follow. Mantis makes the EMTs stop, turns on her side, and calls out, "Nebula!"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Nebula keeps her back to her. "What?"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"...Can I still call you?"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>A tremor runs through Nebula, a mechanical groaning filling the cavernous quiet that stretches between them. </span>
  <em>
    <span>She’ll have to go to the shop</span>
  </em>
  <span>, Mantis thinks idly, thinks of all the times she’s accompanied Nebula to a mechanic’s shop, fingers collapsed firmly together as nervous energy pulsed from the otherwise stoic body beside her. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Now, it’s all Mantis can do to shakily crawl out of her gurney, freezing the concerned EMTs with little, black clouds pressing down upon their brains. As Mantis approaches Nebula, Nebula just stares at her, her eyes narrowed as she takes in her bruises, her burns, her scars. Nebula keeps her hands, stiffly, at her sides, then states, "Yes”. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mantis pushes herself forward, lips seeking to kiss her. Nebula ducks away, and Mantis nods, stepping back because yeah. She deserves that. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>"I'll call you", Mantis says in a wobbly voice, allowing the EMTs to guide her back into her gurney before pushing her up the ramp to the hospital.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Nebula purses her lips. "I’ll answer".</span>
</p><p>
  <span>. . .</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mantis checks out of the hospital three days later, into Ego’s care.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She doesn't drink. And the misery that had been pressed back, like water behind a flimsy wall of concrete, comes flooding back with no restraint. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>And the sorrow that seeks, day and night, to pull her underneath the water had never been so tempting.</span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Kind of a short chapter but I hope y'all liked it! I realize this has been kind of a downer, but we are getting towards the end, and things are gonna start looking up from here, I promise lol. <br/>Let me know what you think! Feedback's always welcome.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0009"><h2>9. Chapter 9</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Okay, so I've been kind of in a writing slump for a while. Wasn't feeling too confident about my writing but I'm actually really proud of this one. It's hella short and hella depressing, but I feel better about it than I have about some of the last few chapters, and I hope y'all like it.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>There's something wrong with her power.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It's still there, it's always there, curled deep within her very soul like a sleeping cat. But it’s different now. When she goes to call upon it or when she finds herself feeling more in-tuned with people’s emotions, it's a muted experience, almost empty in its intensity. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>If empathy were a person, Mantis thinks hers would be diagnosed as depressed. Which is, you know, fitting, considering its owner’s perpetual state of being. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Whatever it is, it's working in her favor. Her whole life, Mantis has always felt everything and everyone too strongly, their emotions weighing down upon her like unrelenting torrents of rain. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>It's nice, to just sit back and, for once, feel almost nothing at all.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>. . .</span>
</p><p>
  <span>A few day’s into the new rotation, Nebula stops by to scoop her up in a stolen Kree-cruiser. They don’t go anywhere, seeming to have exhausted the explorable-places within this quadrant. There are places beyond, places that Mantis herself has ventured out to and has no doubt that Nebulas has as well in her many travels. But the quadrant surrounding Ego has always been their little space, an illusion of escape from the overbearing existence of their fathers. The time will come when they go further, but for now, Mantis is content to just sit here in their stolen shuttle, staring out the windows at the planets lazily drifting past them.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Well. Them and Midnight Proxima.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She’s a very strange girl, much like most of Nebula’s colleagues. When Midnight retreats into the bathroom, Mantis looks down at where Nebula is pressed with her back to her stomach and asks, “Who is that?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Nebula’s got her eyes closed. Her hand is placed contentedly against her stomach, a blaster within its grasp. “My sister”, she relays, eyes remaining closed.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The air surrounding them is chilly. With more than half her body composed of cybernetics, Nebula doesn’t have much care for things as trivial as temperature, but Mantis does. And she’s quite certain this sister of hers would as well if not for the fact that Thanos likely tortured such concerns out of her. “I’ve never seen her before.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“She’s new.”</span>
  <span>
    <br/>
  </span>
  <span>It makes sense. To Thanos, it probably makes sense. Some twisted sense of adoption. This is your new sibling. This is your new home. These are your new virtues. I am your new overlord, and you will not question any of this. In a way, it almost makes Mantis grateful for Ego. She doesn’t like the idea of slowly losing her individuality to someone she’s never even known. It seems better, in her mind, to instead never know yourself and placing your “loyalty” in the one constant in your life.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Well, your sister is truly wonderful”, Mantis tells her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Nebula tilts her head up, eyelids peeling back to reveal carefully-empty irises behind them. “My sister”, she states with a steady cadence, jostled not even by the sudden lurch the cruiser gives as the autopilot just narrowly avoids colliding with a piece of debris. “Is a failure and an embarrassment to my father’s good name.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>That’s a new thing. Since they were ten, Nebula’s seemed to struggle against Thanos’s indoctrination. But the past two years, whatever battle she’d had left in her has seemed to’ve darted out the window. And it’s statements like these that make Mantis truly sad because she knows, even without a gentle caress against Nebula’s mind, that she really means it, really believes it. Long are the days of parroting Thanos’s Commandments and ideologies. Long are the days when Nebula merely acted the part. She is now, in every sense of the word, a Child of Thanos. And for all the tragedy that Mantis has seen in her short, twenty years of life, this would, irrefutably, take the title for the most tragic thing she’s ever witnessed.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She’s projecting. From the sharp wince Nebula gives, followed by the quick disentanglement of their bodies, it’s clear to see, but Mantis doesn’t stop. If Nebula can’t remember what it meant to not be a Child of Thanos, then Mantis will remind her what it means to be one. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The floor lurches beneath them suddenly, prompting disgruntled muttering from Nebula before she leaves in pursuit of the engine room. Mantis follows her, watching as Nebula wretches the screen of a control panel off the wall. “What of Gamora?”, Mantis finds herself asking and tells herself the pulse of anger that Nebula exudes is most certainly not directed at the control panel.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She never met Gamora. But when they were young, Nebula would often speak of her. Always fondly, always gratefully, like it was a blessing just to have her in her life. But it’s been a while since last Nebula spoke of her. And Mantis knows, even before Nebula looks over her shoulder to respond, that Thanos’s indoctrination hadn’t only taken her mind. “What about her?”, Nebula asks coolly, and that’s the end of that because she then turns her efforts to repairing the panel.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>A little while later, Midnight joins them, proclaiming, “You’re out of toilet paper” before taking a seat beside Mantis on the floor. </span>
  <em>
    <span>She</span>
  </em>
  <span>, Mantis can’t help but thinking, </span>
  <em>
    <span>is already broken.</span>
  </em>
  <span> And then she thinks, </span>
  <em>
    <span>We are all broken things</span>
  </em>
  <span>, with Thanos and Ego being their curious, sadistic collectors, delighted in the process of slowly, intimately stripping them of everything that could make them a person. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Nebula sends them both off in search of her toolbox. When they return, she finds herself pondering this, their state of brokenness. She herself has been broken for quite a while now, with that night in the fire taking her to the brink of shattering. Midnight walks with the gait of a thing recently broken but long-since battered. And Nebula carries herself with the taut exhaustion of a thing broken over a long period of time, worn down by plight after plight until she met her shattering.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It’s honestly kind of depressing. So many broken things and not a one of them knows what to do with themselves. That was probably the point of it all, Mantis realizes, and it makes a burst of anger expel from her before it fizzles out into nothing.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Because she is nothing. They are all nothing.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And something about that makes more sense than actually being something. </span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>All right. Y'all, I don't want to be that person. I really do appreciate everyone who's interacted in any kind of way with this story so far, I do, but I would really love some comments. As always, I write for my own enjoyment. I've learned from experience that writing for other people just really wears me down (also a huge waste of time tbh), but it is nice to hear what readers are thinking. And it's also kinda disheartening to see the hit and kudo count go up every week but see that legit no one has commented in seven chapters. Again, I do appreciate all of y'all, and it always makes me so happy to get emails about kudos and see I still have an audience, but sometimes, it just feels like I'm tossing this shit into the void. I'm not gonna stop writing (I have a new thing about leaving fics incomplete, I try to avoid it if I can), but I'd really love it if we could get more comments. I am looking to improve my writing, so constructive criticism is welcome, I just ask that you not be an ass in that criticism.<br/>Anyway. Thanks for reading and I'll see y'all next week. <br/>(Also, I'm really putting Mantis through it, but I promise, things are gonna start looking up soon. I've got five pages left in my draft, and the ending treats Mantis and Nebula pretty good so lol, bear with me through all this turmoil, it's gonna be worth it in the end)</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0010"><h2>10. Chapter 10</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Ego says Thanos is up to something.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He's almost giddy, like a child eagerly waiting for a present. Mantis, sat cross legged before the fireplace, just grunts, attention on the glitchy handheld game in her hands.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"I think it's time", he says, patting himself down like Thanos is about to come bursting through the window any second. "I think he's putting The Plan into motion."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The Plan. That would be the one where half the universe gets obliterated, as opposed to all, due to Ego’s "mind-boggling negotiation skills". It used to bother her when she was younger, carrying on like normal knowing what she knew about two madmen with the means to destroy entire populations of people. There's no point in getting upset though.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>In the end, one of them will kill her anyway.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mantis stares at the screen of her game, watching as a blocky GAME OVER bounces about the screen. "That's nice, master."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>. . .</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She doesn’t remember her life before Ego, and she has a very good memory. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>She used to ask a lot, about her parents, about her homeworld, about her culture. Of course, Ego never had much in the way of answers, would always just wave a hand and say something about saving her from being eaten by a bird. “Never thought you’d turn into an actual person”, he muttered one time after, shooing her off as he picked at the gunk under his nail. “Thought you were a rare bug I could make some money off of.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ego’s an asshole, as Mantis has not-so-recently come to realize, so this time, when the urge comes, she turns elsewhere.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>In her twentieth year, she takes a picture of herself and posts it to an informational website. Se gets a few misplaced creeps, some assholes, and a handful of people who are genuinely helpful but honestly haven’t a clue as to what the fuck she is. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>There is but one who knows, and their reply comes months after she proposed her question.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She doesn’t know how to pronounce or even read it, and her universal translator just grumbles angrily when she attempts to type it in.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She uses a 3D printer to print it out, though, then takes it to a tattoo parlor and gets it inked on the inside of her wrist.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Two for one, one time offer”, the artist says just as she’s standing to leave. Mantis blinks, sits back in the chair, and rubs a finger over her other wrist.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She leaves with an unfamiliar language on one wrist and a colorful cloud of dust and gas on the other.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>. . .</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mantis has something of a reputation as a shit-starter.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>One of the bartenders at a bar she often frequents says she’s like a Flurken, cute and cuddly at first sight but an absolute nightmare from every moment on.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Is that a bad thing?”, Mantis wonders, accepting a glass of sparkling water with heavy shoulders.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The bartender just winks. “Nah. Just means people know not to fuck with you.” She leans in close, presses a kiss to her cheek, and smiles at her. “Chin up, hon. You only need a few good people to really know you.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Her name is Elaina. She’s worked here for years; not nearly as long Mantis has been coming here but long enough for them to have become acquainted. Mantis would consider her something of a mother figure, if she knew what a mother was. As it stands, she considers her a friend.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>That being said, Mantis is a shit-starter, so she usually kicks Mantis out before the crowds really draw in.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It’s partially how Mantis came to be here, sitting in a jail cell between a one-eyed amphibian man and an Askivarian covered in leeches. In her defense, the Rajak had been ignoring her girlfriend for the entirety of the night. Mantis hadn’t been looking to do anything other than cheer the girl up, but the lady came over and started mouthing off, and, one thing led to another, and somebody wound up with a knife through their pancreas.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It’s her first official offense because Ego isn’t here to threaten anyone to drop charges. She gets eighteen years in a maximum-security prison, serves three of them, then decides she’s had enough and “convinces” a handful of guards to let her slip past the gates until she can steal a cruiser and fly back to Ego. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>There’s a bounty out for her rearrest. 13,000 units.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Sitting with the big kids now”, Nebula says as they’re lounging about in her ship one day. She’s missing three new fingers on her left hand, and there’s a panel of machinery sticking out from the left side of her head. She’s colder now. But it’s the same cold she’s always had, and it’s a cold Mantis has always found comfort in. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Her frozen soul could breathe fire into her yet again, if Mantis would will it. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m twenty-three years old”, she whispers, arms wrapped comfortably around Nebula’s waist. “I’ve been a ‘big kid’ for years now.”</span>
  <span>
    <br/>
  </span>
  <span>Nebula presses closer to her, content as she rests against Mantis’s chest, and smiles. She’s not listening. She’s...happy.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mantis closes her eyes, trying to lose herself in the rare rays of sunshine emitting from behind the cloudied skies of her friend.</span>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0011"><h2>11. Chapter 11</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>She gets a job, on a dwarf planet orbiting Ego. Ego isn’t happy about it, although, to be fair, he hasn’t been very happy about anything she does since she quit drinking. If Mantis had any more room in her heart for hope for him, she might’ve pondered what that says about them, that he enjoys her presence more when she’s inebriated than of sound mind. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>In any case, Ego may not be happy about the job, but he doesn’t blow up the planet or toss her into his dungeon. There are a number of reasons to explain this. The top two are that he’s too distracted with his and Thanos’s “Plan” coming to fruition to truly give a shit and because it’s within the orbital region, so it’ll be easier to drag her back if he so desires. In all honesty, it’s probably a mix of both.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Anyhow. It’s a rather simple job, one which, given the laws of the town she’s set up in, could easily get her tossed back in jail: she sits on a blanket in the middle of a market and reads the stars, even in the daytime. She suspects most people don’t believe her, but her antennae and “eccentric” personality seem to make even the naysayers lend her a moment of their time. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Different people want different things in the stars. Some want measurements, some want shapes, some want fortunes. The fortunes are a bit more difficult and require more creative input, but she enjoys it all the same. For years, the stars were her only friends. It’s nice, after all this time, to be able to turn to them and make something of herself.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>. . .</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The following years are a bit hectic, particularly for Terra, whose biggest threat up until that point had been itself. Two Asgardians breach its atmosphere, one with no intent and the other with literally the worst of intentions. Brothers, as it turns out, and the eldest is actually the one to banish the invader.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It all settles down (by Terran standards anyway) for about a year before the youngest Prince of Asgard returns, with an army at his backing. Things continue on in this pattern for a while until  whispers emerge of a Terran who held an Infinity Stone and walked away with a mere few bruises.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And Ego, who’d been eagerly anticipating each new development, is ecstatic, but he doesn't go to retrieve him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Patience, my little tadpole", he giggles, running up and down the hallway like he’s a child. “It's what's gotten me this far."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mantis just closes her eyes and imagines telling the boy to run far, far away, as she has so many times before.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She knows she hasn't the guts to actually do it, but imagining feels nice. And when that fails, well, she can always lose herself in her star-readings, at least for a moment. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>. . .</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Nebula is gone. No voice messages, no emails, no visits, nothing. Mantis thinks the worse until she checks the galactic bounty board and finds a big green check by her account.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Gamora's name, oddly, is gone, no check in sight. As if she'd never been wanted in the first place.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>. . .</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The Maw visits.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>His presence is just as unsettling as it’d been the first time.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mantis sees him and thinks of the first time she’d seen Nebula. One look at him, one empathetic channel, and she knows he’s thinking the same.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“My master wishes to inform you”, he says, looking away from Mantis. “That his...protege was vanquished by the hands of someone yielding an Infinity Stone.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mantis tunes out most of the conversation, tuning back in only when she hears Nebula’s name.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“...betrayed my Master and is currently fleeing from him. We’ve also lost another one of ours, Gamora, but rest assured, the Plan will continue as anticipated.” The Maw looks to Mantis, and Mantis dispenses a lazy but stabbing force of fear towards him, like a porcupine’s quills standing on end at the presence of danger.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Quit being a prick, Mantis.” Ego sighs, shakes his head, and says, “She’s got a crush on the blue one. Excuse her insolence”.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mantis rises from her seat, stalks to her room. She scans the hub for signs of Nebula all night.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>. . .</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Nebula doesn’t return, doesn’t call, doesn’t text. Mantis isn’t upset, though.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Everyone who knows of Thanos and Ego knows their “pets” have a strong relationship. If ever anyone was watching, now would be the time. It makes sense, that after all this time, Nebula has yet to reach out to her. It’d be too risky, for the both of them. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>So Mantis copes. And she waits. And when she misses her, she rubs the tattoo of her left wrist and sends a tendril of longing out into the galaxy, hoping, by all hope, that Nebula feels her the way Mantis feels her.</span>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0012"><h2>12. Chapter 12</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>End of the line!</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Nebula is captured two years later, mere hours before the Terran Child of Ego arrives.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And with that Child, is Gamora.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>They’ve never met before. But from how much Nebula talks, thinks, and </span>
  <em>
    <span>feels</span>
  </em>
  <span> about Gamora, Mantis feels like they have. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>So it doesn’t take her much by surprise Mantis when she passes Gamora and immediately finds herself pressed up against a wall, a sharp dagger pressed against the back of her neck. The words “Hurt her and I’ll kill you” would be endearing if A, Mantis wasn’t being threatened and B, the possibility of Nebula being dead wasn’t as high as it is. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>In any case, Mantis doesn’t have the opportunity to reply or incapacitate her because it’s in that moment that the Kylosian, Drax, asks, “Why do you look like an insect?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Straining underneath the weight of Gamora, Mantis cranes her head to the side, narrowing her eyes as she calmly retorts, “I don’t know. Why do you?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It’s not her best comeback. Not even her fifth best comeback but he doesn’t say anything for a while after that. Later, Peter tells her she hurt his feelings.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Good</span>
  </em>
  <span>, Mantis thinks, careful, from thereon out, to keep her distance from Gamora. And then, upon seeing Ego’s predatory gaze in the corner, she thinks, </span>
  <em>
    <span>Like a flurken. Be like a flurken.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>. . .</span>
</p><p>
  <span>These Guardians, Mantis can admit, are actually quite nice.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Even Gamora, who frequently makes sure that Mantis can see her flashing her sword at her. And even Drax, who, after the insect comment, goes out of his way to say he meant a beautiful insect like a butterfly.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Peter’s weird, but he plays music for her and teaches her to dance until Ego tells them they both look like drunken idiots. It makes her feel sad, helpless to the point of frustration, knowing that none of them will leave this planet.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It’s not her place to say something, though, so she remains quiet. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I have not seen Nebula in three years”, Mantis says as she and Gamora sit in the wheatfields whilst Peter and Ego are “daddy-son bonding”. “Is she-”</span>
  <span>
    <br/>
  </span>
  <span>“She is alive”, Gamora responds curtly. She turns to Mantis and says, with a blank face, “She tried to kill me”.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mantis just shrugs. “She is an assassin.”</span>
  <span>
    <br/>
  </span>
  <span>“She is my sister”, Gamora snaps, and the red tips of her hair contrasts beautifully against the drab background of the atmosphere. For a moment, Mantis just looks, trying to find some semblance of Nebula within her. Obviously, there is none because they are adopted sisters. But there are certain mannerisms. The way Gamora scrunches up her nose when she’s upset. The way she presses down on her emotions like a tornado presses down upon a grassy plain. The way her eyes had widened, momentarily, with hope when she’d asked of her sister, before quickly fading over to nonchalance. And between them both, there’s an anguish, of a sisterhood once cherished turned festered, ruined by forces beyond them. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>She is, irrefutably, Nebula’s sister. And so to finally find Mantis, a woman that everyone knows as of equal importance in Nebula’s mind as Gamora...well...Mantis understands the turmoil threatening to boil over from Gamora’s inner center. There have been others in Nebula’s life, others who took advantage of their relationship with her, and used it to further their own agenda. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mantis doesn’t say any of this, though she wants to. It isn’t her place, she realizes, to say these things. If what Gamora says is true and Nebula is truly alive, the time will come for this conversation. The time will come to mend what was broken between them. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“She doesn’t hate you”, she says instead. “She hates him and what he’s made of your relationship.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Gamora doesn’t respond to that, just slices her sword through a pesky bit of wheat bending at her heel. Mantis rises to her feet, brushes her hair over her shoulder, and turns to leave, stopping only when Gamora suddenly says, “She loves you”.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mantis pauses in her steps; her hands clench at her sides, and her mouth runs dry. When she speaks, her voice doesn’t sound like her own. “I know.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The quiet stretches longer this time before Gamora says, “It’s a different kind of love”.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mantis swallows, licks her lips, and keeps walking.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>. . .</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She makes up her mind a little while later. Not because of Gamora, even if they’d come to an uneasy alliance, one wherein they can sit beside each other and talk, as if they were old friends, reminiscing about pasts they’d never shared. And it isn’t because of Drax, who’d made it his mission to collect a swarm full of butterflies and set them loose in her hall whilst she slept. And it isn’t because of Peter, who makes her wish for her early days of youth and ignorance and inexperience.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>No. She tells them because, even all this time, she’s still a child at heart, a child who wants nothing more than a family to belong to. Maybe she’ll find it in the Guardians, maybe she won’t, but the point is, she’s been miserable for a good deal of years now because her life’s been contained to this planet full of corpses and madness.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>If she tells, it may be of benefit to them all.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>. . .</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mantis is the one to kill Ego, though the Guardians are there to assist.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She stabs him clear through his spine and twists, feeling the blood of the wound dribble onto her fingers.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I am not a pet”, she hisses, and the planet explodes.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>. . .</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She leaves with the Guardians.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Sitting in a passenger’s seat beside a talking rodent is Nebula.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>This time, when Mantis goes to kiss her, her lips meet lips, instead of air.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>. . .</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The universe is a lot bigger now, but they wind up returning to Ego.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>For the most part, anyway. Mantis still gets into bar fights. Arguably, she gets into a lot more of them now. According to the Galactic Mental Health Association, it probably has something to do with being out of an abusive relationship for the first time in her life. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>It’s certainly something. She hasn’t felt something this restless, this trigger-happy in years.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You’re gonna pick a fight with the wrong person one of those days”, Nebula cautions her, applying disinfectant to a deep cut running along Mantis’s forehead. “You don’t have Ego to protect you anymore. People aren’t as willing to let slights like these go.”</span>
  <span>
    <br/>
  </span>
  <span>Mantis just shrugs. She flops back down on her bed, stares up at the canopy of silly string screaming across her ceiling, and sighs. “Maybe I don’t want them to let them go.”</span>
  <span>
    <br/>
  </span>
  <span>Nebula sets her bottle of disinfectant aside and just stares at her*. “You’re gonna get yourself killed. Do you want to die?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Honestly? No. If you’d’ve asked her that question a few years ago, she might’ve said “Yes”. But not right now, not right this moment. She drops her arm over her eyes, sighs loudly, and mutters, “No. I don’t”. It could change tomorrow, it could change within the next hour. It’s something she’s recently begun to understand. Emotions are like the wind. Here in one moment, gone in the next. A gentle breeze in the morning, a raging storm at night. </span>
  <span>
    <br/>
  </span>
  <span>“Then you need to take better care of yourself”, Nebula says, drawing her out of her thoughts. She pulls a roll of gauze from her medical kit and sets about wrapping it around Mantis’s head. When she finishes, she allows her hand to linger against her cheek, metal to flesh. She leans in close, presses their lips together, and closes her eyes. “Please. Be careful.”</span>
  <span>
    <br/>
  </span>
  <span>Mantis wraps an arm around Nebula’s waist and pulls her close. She turns off the lamp beside her, closes her eyes, and pulls the covers up around them. “Okay.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>. . .</span>
</p><p>
  <span>They abandon Ego’s Palace and set up a camp on the other side of the planet, where it’s a bit hotter but his stench is gone. Most nights, they sleep in Nebula’s ship. Others, when Mantis is feeling really romantic, they sleep outside, under the stars.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mantis tells Nebula about her old job and how important they used to make her feel at a time when she’d felt so utterly useless. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Tell me about that one”, Nebula says in reply, snuggling closer underneath the blanket wrapped around them.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mantis tells her about it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>. . .</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Her whole life, Mantis has lived on Ego.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>When the time comes for them to leave, she’s almost sad to go.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Then she thinks of its namesake, buckles herself into her seat, and doesn’t look back.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>. . .</span>
</p><p>
  <span>A little while later, they hook back up with the Guardians.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The Benatar feels like what happiness is.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mantis slips her hand into Nebula’s and inhales. She feels of ice and walls and jagged edges. But she also feels of hope and desire and what dreams are made of.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Guess we’re heroes now”, Nebula murmurs, watching as Peter and Groot dance atop the kitchen table.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mantis drops her head onto her shoulder and smiles. “Guess we are.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>. . .</span>
</p><p>
  <span>When Nebula propositions Mantis to help her take down Thanos, Mantis doesn’t hesitate to say “Yes”.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She knows it’s probably not a good idea. Neither of them are in the greatest states of mind, but, to be fair, they’ll never be. And, as Ego used to say, there’s no time like the present.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>They depart from the Guardians, fix up Nebula’s ship, and stand at the engine.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And then they go.</span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>So that's it! I had a lot of fun writing this, and, honestly, I'm so excited for vol 3, I cannot wait to see what they do with Mantis and Nebula. Thank y'all for reading and I hope y'all liked it. If you can, I'd really appreciate comments. See y'all next time😘😘😘.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
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